The Nebulas Do Diversity

I was way too tired when I got home to stay up for the Nebula Awards announcements. However, they were there for me on Twitter when I woke up, and very fine they were too.

The Novel category was won by Charlie Jane Anders for All the Birds in the Sky. Charlie is the first openly trans person to win a Nebula. (Tiptree won a few, but her identity was very complicated, to herself as much as to anyone else.)

Novella was won by Seanan McGuire for Every Heart a Doorway, which features a great trans character. The new book from that world, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, is due out in June and I cannot wait.

Novelette was won by William Ledbetter for “The Long Fall Up”. I know nothing about the story, but its only fair that white men get to win things too.

Short Story went to Amal El-Mohtar for “Seasons of Glass and Iron” from The Starlit Wood. Nice to see a woman of color on the winners list.

Moving into the Not-A-Nebula categories, the Bradbury went to Arrival, which is based on a story by Asian-American writer, Ted Chiang.

And the Norton went to David Levine for Arabella of Mars whose central character spends much of the book cross-dressed. I kind of wish that David had mentioned the very obvious thing that a woman disguised as a man on a long space voyage would have to deal with, but I guess the book would not have been published as YA if he did. Anyway, it’s a fun book and I’m looking forward to the sequel which is out in July.

To wrap up, there were two Solstice Award winners this year. They were Toni Weisskopf and Peggy Rae Sapienza. Both have done great work over many years and deserve to be honored in this way.